The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Friday, October 10, 2014

by Majid Rafizadeh For several reasons, President Obama appears to be desperate to seal a final nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, even if the comprehensive nuclear pact would leave the Iranian leaders with the nuclear infrastructure and required centrifuges to build an atomic bomb. Based on the latest developments, it is clear the Obama administration has steadily become much more lenient and compromising, giving unprecedented concessions to the Islamic Republic, some of which have been kept clandestine.As the nuclear talks continue between Iranian leaders and representatives from the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the nuclear negotiations have turned primarily into a show between the United States and the Islamic Republic. Increasingly, Iranian and American politicians from both sides have been holding bilateral talks in order to strike a nuclear deal by the extended deadline of November 24.The US and Iran appear to be the two major players in the nuclear talks, as the White House began reshaping the nuclear negotiations which fall right into the interests of Iranian politicians.First of all, the main demand of the United States and other world powers was that the Islamic Republic had to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure for the United Nations Security Council to remove the four rounds of economic and political sanctions on Iran. Dismantlement of the major nuclear facilities would give the international community a considerable amount of relief from Iran’s potential to develop an atomic bomb anytime soon.In the past months, the nuclear talks became stagnant due to the fact that Iranian leaders, particularly Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, suggested that they will not give an inch or dismantle their nuclear infrastructure.How did President Obama respond to Iranian leaders’ zero sum political game and uncompromising standpoint? Intriguingly, President Obama made a decision to secretly lower the international community’s demands to satisfy the Iranian nuclear team’s demands. It is key to point out that the decision he made highlights a significant shift in nuclear negotiations. The White House proposed that the Islamic Republic disconnect rather than dismantle its centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium and obtain a nuclear bomb. This is a critical shift in the American position towards Iran’s nuclear defiance.President Obama’s proposal to the Islamic Republic would in fact leave Iranian leaders with all their nuclear infrastructure they have so far developed. Iranian leaders would also be capable of secretly continuing to enrich uranium through bypassing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s rules. In addition, since the nuclear infrastructure and centrifuges would remain almost intact, the Islamic Republic would be capable of resuming its nuclear activities anytime they desire in the future; this can occur potentially after economic sanctions were removed and Iran’s objective achieved.President Obama’s offer to the Iranian leaders was kept secret from the public and US Congress as well. The proposal was disclosed by the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who held private conversations with U.S. experts in New York.After President Obama’s proposal was revealed, Congress understandably raised a series of concerns. Senator Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) initiated a letter, which included thirty other Senators, to Secretary of State John Kerry, pointing out that the Obama administration “may now be offering troubling nuclear concessions to Iran in the hopes of rapidly concluding negotiations for a ‘deal.’”

President Obama will be in office for a few more years, but if the final nuclear deal is signed based on President Obama’s proposal, it will pose an unprecedented danger and an irresolvable global issue with regard to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear threat as well as Tehran’s ideological and hegemonic ambitions.Numerous reasons may be behind President Obama’s leniency, priority changes and determination to strike a final nuclear deal with Iran. First of all, Obama cannot run for reelection. As a result, a flimsy nuclear deal — which would leave the Islamic Republic with a path to develop a nuclear bomb — would not affect his political career. Secondly, President Obama can add another achievement to his political career and history for being the first US President to seal a final nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.Third, President Obama’s leadership has always been weak when it comes to dealing with Iran’s Supreme Leader and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian leaders have masterfully taken advantage of his leaderless personality. The Islamic Republic is even attempting to get more concessions from the White House by linking its fight against the Islamic State with the nuclear negations as a trade off. Apparently, all odds are in favor of the Iranian leaders so far as they are cognizant of that fact that they are facing a lenient and weak US President and as they are increasingly and steadily increasing their leverage over the US.President Obama’s proposal and leniency would grant Ayatollah Khamenei what he desires: removal of economic sanctions as well as maintaining the right the enrich uranium; build an atomic bomb.Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist and scholar, is president of the International American Council and serves on the board of the Harvard International Review at Harvard University. Rafizadeh is also a senior fellow at the Nonviolence International Organization based in Washington, DC and is a member of the Gulf project at Columbia University. He can be reached at rafizadeh@fas.harvard.edu. Follow Rafizadeh at @majidrafizadeh.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/obama-secretly-giving-in-to-irans-nuke-demands/ Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Satellite images of the area, to the east of Tehran, prove that the explosion reported by the Iranian media had, indeed,
occurred inside the military compound in Parchin, where, according to
western intelligence agencies, trials are being conducted on nuclear
missile fuzes.

Satellite images obtained by the Israel Defense website and
analyzed by specialist Ronen Solomon clearly show damage consistent with
an attack against bunkers in a central locality within the military
research complex at the Parchin military compound.

The locality in question is situated at the center of the compound, adjacent to another installation
where, according to intelligence sources, the trials being conducted
involve controlled detonation of fuzes intended to serve as triggers for
nuclear devices.

The locality consists of a sizable testing center and what appears to
be an area with bunker-shaped structures. "Before and after" images
indicate that a complete section of structures was simply eliminated by
an unexplained explosion, according to the website.

The explosion wiped several testing units off the face of the earth
while inflicting collateral damage on adjacent buildings, with traces of
fire clearly visible in a section located in a sparsely afforested
area.

The images, taken by the French satellite Pleiades at a 0.5 meter
resolution on the day following the reports at 07:30 a.m., also show
vehicles – probably fire trucks, at the scene.

At least two people, among them an unnamed "nuclear expert", were
killed in Monday’s explosion at the compound, though official Iranian
sources said that there had been an “incident,” but not an explosion.

The sources added that there was no nuclear work being done at Parchin.​

Iran has refused to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors
to access Parchin since 2005, and both opposition figures and others
have accused the regime of using the site to house an illegal nuclear
weapons program.

Last month,
Israel's Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said he had "reliable
information" that Parchin was being used for secret tests of technology
that could be used only for detonating a nuclear weapon.

Satellite evidence last August and in 2012 suggested that nuclear bomb triggering devices are being tested in Parchin.Ben ArielSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/185986#.VDbmXhYYjLN Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Out of
the north the evil will break forth, as expected. Hezbollah is keen. It
has apparently lost over a thousand fighters battling in Syria, after
coming to the aid of the unpopular Bashar Assad.

Hezbollah is a natural
enemy of the Islamic State group, which has supplanted it as the face of
religious radicalism, and it sat by in almost complete silence during
Operation Protective Edge as Israel was battering Hamas. Hassan
Nasrallah's supporters expect more from him, something more violent.
Therefore he has begun, with increasing frequency, answering the
expectations of the extremists, but on a scope that will not drag him
into a third Lebanon war.

Over eight years after
sparking the Second Lebanon War, Nasrallah himself should remember what
he said when the war ended, that had he known what Israel's response
would be in the Dahiyeh neighborhood of Beirut in southern Lebanon, he
would not have abducted IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
It's possible the passing years and his failures in other arenas have
helped him forget the consequences of provoking Israel.

The IDF has noticed the
growing restlessness in the north. When Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon
and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz toured the border area, it
was not as part of their routine visits, but to gauge the atmosphere in
the northern sector from up close. The shooting and wounding of a
Lebanese soldier on Sunday
has not been linked to the Tuesday's roadside bombings. The solider was
searching for drug smugglers, mistakenly crossed the border and was
wounded. Hezbollah, however, had an interest in causing friction, which
it did yesterday by detonating the explosives it had set along the
border fence a while ago.

Israel believes it is
highly unlikely Hezbollah wants to open another front against Israel
right now. It is mired in a frustrating campaign alongside Assad, and
its mission in Syria exceeds its capabilities. The recent fights in the
Middle East, however -- from the Second Lebanon War in 2006 through all
the flare-ups and operations in Gaza -- happened against the
expectations of the leaders, apparently from both sides of the fence.

Nasrallah does not want
a war, but in July this was also believed to be true of Hamas leaders
Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal, yet the shooting spiraled out of
control regardless. Not to mention that in the Middle East the words
"quiet will be met with quiet" are perceived, not as a practical
proposal in the spirit of compromise, but as a sign of weakness on the
part of the side making the proposal.

Under these conditions
Nasrallah and his advisers may believe that Israel's ability to
withstand another missile campaign is rather limited, and that following
Protective Edge it will do whatever it can to prevent another
conflagration. Such estimates, however, are always different than the
final bill.

Israel has no interest
in another military campaign. It has even less of an interest though in a
trickle of rockets, which includes the infamous roadside bombs from
those days in the security zone in southern Lebanon. Israel also doesn't
have another 50 days to spare while the situation gradually
deteriorates like it did in Gaza.

Quiet is preferable, but our
patience is on a short a fuse. Hezbollah -- and the Lebanese government
along with it -- need to take into account that Lebanon's ability to
withstand an Israeli military onslaught is less than that of the
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and that Israel will not allow its
patience, nerves and restraint to be tested for very long. Not all
escalations happen gradually, if, heaven forbid, the need for urgency is
created.

"To me it seems the Nakba has been transformed
from a humanitarian issue to a political one, to perpetuate the current
situation as leverage on Israel. It is time to put the hatred and
alienation behind us," says Deputy Ambassador George Deek.

Israeli Deputy Ambassador to
Norway George Deek

|

Photo credit: George Deek

Israeli Deputy Ambassador to Norway George
Deek is a Christian Arab has called on disbanding the notion of the
Nakba, or "Catastrophe," as many Arab nations refer to Israel's
establishment in 1948.

Deek, the son of refugees from Jaffa, has
lectured throughout Europe on his family's history, and has called on
others who left or were deported from Jaffa after 1948 to let go of the
Nakba concept.

"When I walk through my birthplace, Jaffa, I
think about the fishermen's beach in 1948, about my house in Ajami
[neighborhood] and the stories I heard about those years," Deek said in a
lecture uploaded recently to YouTube.

"My grandfather George, after whom I was
named, lived in Jaffa with his family for 400 years. He married Vera, my
grandmother, and a few months later their plans changed. The United
Nations recognized Israel and a few months later the State of Israel was
formed. The Arab leaders warned that anyone who stays will be murdered
by the Jews and they suggested running away. They said that armies of
five Arab nations would destroy Israel and we would be able to return to
our homes.

"The war ended with an Arab failure. [They]
did not succeed in destroying Israel. Since 1948, there have been
numerous occasions, including now, of refugees being kicked out of their
homes."

Deek questioned why the displacement in Israel is the only one to be called the Nakba.

"Why are Poles, Iraqis and others not mentioned by the
international community and the U.N., but the Nakba is? To me it seems
the Nakba has been transformed from a humanitarian issue to a political
one, to perpetuate the current situation as leverage against Israel. It
is time to put the hatred and alienation behind us."

The uproar that erupted
throughout the Arab world over the use of a map with Israel's name on it
is yet another reminder that many Arabs still have not come to terms
with Israel's existence -- and apparently are not interested in coming
to terms with it.The protestors were not demanding a two-state solution and an Israeli
withdrawal from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They were protesting
against Israel's existence; that is what really bothers them.How can anyone seriously expect that, if Israel pulled back to the
pre-1967 lines, the Arab world will consider the "Israeli-Arab Conflict
over?"This conflict is not about a settlement or a checkpoint or a fence --
but about Israel's very existence. To make peace with Israel, the Arab
world needs to prepare its people for such a move, and not incite
violence against Israel and demand that it be removed from maps.

The Saudi MBC TV network was recently forced to apologize to its
hundreds of millions of viewers for using the name Israel instead of
Palestine.

The apology came after viewers strongly condemned the network and
threatened to boycott its programs over the use of a map with Israel's
name on it.

The reason Israel appeared on the MBC's map was because of the participation
of two Arab citizens of Israel in its popular Arab Idol contest. The
show, based on the popular British show Pop Idol, is the most widely
viewed in the Arab world.

The two Arab Israelis, Manal Moussa, 25 and Haitham Khalailah, 24,
are from villages in northern Israel. They are among many contestants
from all over the Arab world who are performing songs on stage in front
of four judges and the public.

This is the first time that Arab Israelis have participated in the popular show.

When this season's show began in mid-September, the TV station
introduced a map with the names of the contestants' countries. This
year, of course, the map showed Israel as one of the countries taking
part in the show.

The Saudi station and directors of the Arab Idol show quickly learned,
however, that they had committed a big and unforgivable crime. Within
minutes, they were flooded with requests to remove Israel from the map
and apologize to all Arabs for this "serious offence."

The condemnations did not come only from Palestinians, but from
nearly all the Arab countries. The protesters demanded that MBC
immediately replace "Israel" with "Palestine" or face a massive boycott
campaign.

Arab activists did not even wait to hear back from MBC, and launched
their own online campaign to boycott the station. One group launched a
Twitter campaign entitled "Shut Down Arab Idol." Another campaign was
launched under the banner, "Palestine is Arab, not Hebrew." A third
online campaign carried the title, "Together Against Arab Idol."

And of course there were the more extreme activists who issued threats against the station and its Saudi owners, whom they dubbed "Zionist Arabs."

Not surprisingly, embattled MBC managers rushed to issue a statement
apologizing for displaying a map that referred to Israel as an existing
state. MBC claimed that Israel appeared on the map as a result of a
"technical error." The name Israel was removed from the map, which now
uses only the name Palestine.

Israeli
citizen Manal Moussa, shown in this image appearing on the "Arab Idol"
show, is labeled on-screen with "Palestine" as her country of residence.

But with that, the story did not come to an end. Under pressure from
the viewers, the two Arab Israeli singers are now referred to only as
Palestinians. There is no mention whatsoever of the fact that both
Moussa and Khalailah were raised in Israel and hold Israeli passports.

The uproar that erupted throughout the Arab world over the use of a
map with Israel's name on it is yet another reminder that many Arabs
still have not come to terms with Israel's existence -- and apparently
are not interested in coming to terms with it.

This refusal is not related to the recent war between Israel and
Hamas or to settlement construction. Rather, it is the narrative that
has been prevalent in the Arab world since 1948 -- a narrative that
considers Israel an alien entity that was violently planted in the
Middle East and needs to be removed.

The incident with MBC's Arab Idol show came amid renewed talk of the
purported readiness of some Arab countries to make peace with Israel, in
light of the increased turmoil and anarchy in the Arab world and the
war on the Islamic State terrorist group.

Every now and then, Israel is advised by some of its friends to
consider endorsing the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative, which later became
to be known as the Arab Peace Initiative.

In the initiative, the Arab countries say that if Israel withdraws to
the pre-1967 lines, they will consider the Arab-Israeli conflict over,
sign a peace agreement and establish normal relations with Israel.

These, of course, are just promises made by heads of state and
monarchs, most of whom were never elected, and hardly represent the
sentiments on the Arab street.

If a powerful TV network such as MBC was unable to face pressure and
intimidation and had to remove Israel from its map, how can anyone
seriously expect that Arab leaders will be able to win the backing of
their people for an initiative that talks about "establishing normal
relations" with Israel?

And how can anyone seriously expect that if Israel pulled back to the
pre-1967 lines, the Arab world will consider the Israeli-Arab Conflict
over?

The protesters who forced MBC to remove Israel from its map were not
demanding a two-state solution and an Israeli withdrawal from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. They were protesting against Israel's existence;
that is what really bothers them.

Their success in forcing MBC to remove Israel from the map is a
symbolic victory for those who seek Israel's destruction. But it is also
a reminder that this conflict is not about a settlement or a checkpoint
or a fence -- but about Israel's very existence.

In order to make peace with Israel, the Arab world needs to prepare
its people for such a move, and not incite violence against Israel and
demand that it be removed from maps. Unless that happens, the prospects
for real peace will remain as remote as ever.Khaled Abu ToamehSource: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4765/remove-israel-map Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

You
may have read of the shocking allegations made by Rep. Duncan Hunter on
Tuesday when he claimed that 10 Islamic State terrorists had been
apprehended at the southern border.

“There’s
nobody talking about it,” Rep. Hunter told Fox. “If you really want to
protect Americans from ISIS, you secure the southern border. It’s that
simple…They caught them at the border, therefore we know that ISIS is
coming across the border. If they catch five or ten of them then you
know there’s going to be dozens more that did not get caught by the
border patrol.”

“The
suggestion that individuals who have ties to ISIL have been apprehended
at the Southwest border is categorically false, and not supported by
any credible intelligence or the facts on the ground,” said DHS
spokesperson Marsha Catron. “DHS continues to have no credible
intelligence to suggest terrorist organizations are actively plotting to
cross the southwest border.”

Hunter claimed to get his information from a high level DHS source. And now, Judicial Watch has confirmed at least part of the story:

Islamic
terrorists have entered the United States through the Mexican border
and Homeland Security sources tell Judicial Watch that four have been
apprehended in the last 36 hours by federal authorities and the Texas
Department of Public Safety in McAllen and Pharr.JW
confirmed this after California Congressman Duncan Hunter, a former
Marine Corp Major and member of the House Armed Services Committee,
disclosed on national television
that at least ten Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria
(ISIS) fighters have been caught crossing the Mexican border in Texas.
The veteran lawmaker got the astounding intel straight from U.S. Customs
and Border Protection (CBP), the Homeland Security agency responsible
for guarding the 1,933-mile southern border.“If
you really want to protect Americans from ISIS, you secure the southern
border,” Hunter proclaimed on a national cable news show this week.
“It’s that simple. ISIS doesn’t have a navy, they don’t have an air
force, they don’t have nuclear weapons. The only way that ISIS is going
to harm Americans is by coming in through the southern border – which
they already have.” The three-term congressmen went on: “They aren’t
flying B-1 bombers, bombing American cities, but they are going to be
bombing American cities coming across from Mexico.”In late August JW reported
that Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city
of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs
or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level
federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed to JW
that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border
has been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice
and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to
aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this
imminent terrorist threat.

Ther's
an interesting bureaucratic dynamic at work. Agents with the US Customs
and Border Protection service have been complaining for years about our
porous southern border. Unlike the rest of DHS immigration agencies,
they have been vocal about enforcing border security.

Perhaps
the entry of these terrorists was the last straw. Knowing that DHS
would sweep it under the rug, CBP leaked the info first to the
congressman and then to JW. And the fact that they were willing to go on
the record makes the DHS look like a bunch of liars.

It
may be that we were keeping the apprehension of these terrorists secret
until we could interrogate them to discover if they have any associates
in the US and what was their plot. But once the information was out,
DHS had no cause to lie anymore.

And
you know that if 4 were caught, there are others who were successful in
breaching our border security. It's unsettling to contemplate the lack
of urgency by this government to shore up our security at a time when
terrorists are able to cross the border with impunity.

There
has been a lot of consternation that Common Core and new Advanced
Placement United States History (APUSH) standards eviscerate the
understanding of our exceptional history. Most concerning is the
anti-historical emphasis on social justice, globalism, environmentalism,
race, class, and gender victimhood that undermines Western ideals, the
Constitution, capitalism, and American culture.

Up to this
point, definitive proof the new “standards” were deleterious was
anecdotal. But facts now show not only intent, but a vision and mission
that bring schools face to face with forces bent on instilling a false
shame Americas past for the purpose of establishing a global collective.

Where did this
nonsense come from, who was behind it, and how could such a destructive
approach to the history of our liberty occur?

For four years
beginning in1997, a conference on American History was held at New York
University’s center in Florence Italy called the Villa LaPietra. It was
organized by Dr. Thomas Bender of NYU. Primary funding came from the
liberal Rockefeller, Ford, and Mellon Foundations. At these meetings, 78
historians, half who were not Americans, gathered to create a new
American History. Their vision can be read in the aptly named LaPietra
Report.

The report
gives specific guidelines to be set in motion in order to change
American History education. The following are excerpts of the LaPietra
report written by Bender in September of 2000. He does not speak alone,
however, as “drafts have been discussed with and circulated to all the
participants,” and “there is a general concurrence on the general
orientation of its phrasing of the issues and its recommendations” that
“represent the views of the project as a whole.”

Read
critically for yourself the bizarre vision being discussed and see the
purposeful intent that was orchestrated among a group determined to
fundamentally transform America.The vision:

[The]
“approach builds upon comparative history, a method of historical
inquiry that has been developed by Americanists.” (Specialists in the
languages or cultures of the aboriginal inhabitants of America)“The approach
of this project is closer to and extends recent work in the study of the
African diaspora, the creation of the Atlantic world, diplomatic
history, the history of migration, environmental history, the study of
gender, and intellectual history.”“Boundaries
are increasingly understood as being relatively permeable, more like
“zones of contact” than firm lines of division.”Create “an internationalized history” and “understand the lines of division or dimensions of otherness.”“The lived and
experienced connections in transnational space need to be explored --
both the channels that facilitate movement and the ruptures,
discontinuities, and disarticulations that structure inequalities and
constitute the basis for national and other forms of differentiation.”We “offer of
the gift of cosmopolitanism.” (The ideology that all human ethnic groups
belong to a single community based on a shared morality)“We must
resist the error of making world history a mere extension of a
triumphalist narrative of the American experience” while “avoiding
simplistic assertions of American exceptionalism.”“Besides
democracy, we note such historical phenomena as Christianity and/or
religious pluralism, modernization and modernity, racial hierarchy,
migration, environmental change, capitalism, slavery and freedom,
technology, community formation, empire and colonialism, cultural
modernism, identity formation and others”“The history curriculum … will all be marked by the recognition of a plurality of narratives”“We expect them [children] to understand the controversial power and presence of the United States”“Promote in students a more informed sense of and commitment to a global human commons;”

The mission:

“Develop a genuinely international community of Americanist teachers and scholars.”“We hope that
the history curriculum at all levels, not only in colleges and
universities but also in the K-12 levels will address itself to these
issues... It is essential that college and university departments--which
carry the responsibility for training historians who will teach at the
K-12 levels--begin this work of integration.”“The
obligations of a professional discipline are substantial. College and
university history departments are responsible for the creation and
transmission of the new knowledges”“Advise state education departments and textbook publishers”“This report seeks to encourage a particular orientation to these challenges and opportunities.”“We wish
history to be more inclusive, not less. Such inclusiveness will, we
think, eventually result in a substantial reframing of the basic
narrative of American history. But we understand the process as
incremental and ongoing, working in distinctive ways in different
institutions.”“The point
here, again, is neither the precise structure nor the distribution, but
rather the way the field of history is represented. It is not
nation-centered.”

In short,
progressives want American history to be without borders, aboriginal,
transnational, intellectualized, cosmopolitan, and written by
Americanists. The focus: African immigration, peace, environmentalism,
gender, inequality, pluralism, modernity, racial hierarchy, migration,
slavery, community, colonialism, identity formation, and building a
global commens.

The rhetoric,
euphemisms, and denial from ivory tower revisionists can no longer hide
the truth. A Progressive movement to change American History and
undermine the nation is self-evident.

Change does
not come all at once; it is systemic, often passive and unassuming. We
have gone from the vision at LaPietra to the actions of “rewriting
standards” known as Common Core and APUSH. It is time to wake up and
push back against a group ideology hell bent on rewriting our past, and
with it, destroying our future.

For
further reading: A selection of the papers presented in Florence was
published in a book edited by Thomas Bender “Rethinking American History
in a Global Age.”

“From the first moment I heard about Che, Ernesto Guevara,” gushes Columbia University’s SDS (Student’s for a Democratic Society) leader in 1968 Mark Rudd, “he was my man, or, rather, I was his. Brilliant, young, idealistic, a daring commander of rebels, willing to risk his life to free the people of the world, I wanted to be like him. I was a member of the cult of Che. Who wouldn’t fall for this rifle-toting poet … ?”Columbia University College Republicans, for one. The Young America’s Foundation (YAF) for another. Indeed such is these organizations’ penchant for blowing raspberries and horse-laughs at the staggering imbecilities swallowed (and spouted) by gasping groupies like Mark Rudd that they’re a staging a “No More Che Day” at Mark Rudd’s own Columbia University on Oct. 9th.Worse still (for such as Rudd and fellow Che groupies), this event features a speaker who — you might say — “wrote the book” on exposing the real Che Guevara and the staggering stupidity (or other mental malfunctions) that motivate those who idolize this amazing sadist, coward and epic idiot.For starters, most of Che’s “rifle-toting” was done in the face of utterly unarmed enemies. “When you saw the beaming look on Che’s face as the victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad,” said a former Cuban political prisoner Roberto Martin-Perez to your humble servant here, “you saw there was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara.”Even as a youth, Ernesto Guevara’s writings revealed a serious mental illness. “My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any vencido that falls in my hands!” This passage is from Ernesto Guevara’s famous Motorcycle Diaries, though Robert Redford somehow overlooked it while directing his heart-warming movie.The Spanish word vencido, by the way, translates into “defeated” or “surrendered.” And indeed, “the “acrid odor of gunpowder and blood” very, very rarely reached Guevara’s nostrils from anything properly describable as combat. It mostly came from the close-range murders of defenseless men (and boys). Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets from the firing squad shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro and Che’s theft of their humble family farm, all refused blindfolds and all died sneering at their Communist murderers, as did thousands of their valiant countrymen. “Viva Cuba Libre! Viva Cristo Rey! Abajo Comunismo!” “The defiant yells would make the walls of La Cabana prison tremble,” wrote eyewitness to the slaughter, Armando Valladares.The one genuine accomplishment in Che Guevara’s life was the mass-murder of defenseless men and boys. Under his own gun dozens died. Under his orders thousands crumpled. At everything else Che Guevara failed abysmally, even comically.During his Bolivian “guerrilla” campaign, Che split his forces whereupon they got hopelessly lost and bumbled around, half-starved, half-clothed and half-shod, without any contact with each other for 6 months before being wiped out. They didn’t even have WWII vintage walkie-talkies to communicate and seemed incapable of applying a compass reading to a map. They spent much of the time walking in circles and were usually within a mile of each other. During this blundering they often engaged in ferocious firefights against each other!“You hate to laugh at anything associated with Che, who murdered so many defenseless men and boys,” says Felix Rodriguez, the Cuban-American CIA officer who played a key role in tracking him down in Bolivia. “But when it comes to Che as “guerrilla” you simply can’t help but guffaw.”

Che’s genocidal fantasies included a continental reign of Stalinism. And to achieve this ideal he craved, “millions of atomic victims” — most of them Americans. “The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind!” raved Ernesto Che Guevara in 1961. “Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination. We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies’ very home, to his places of work and recreation. The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we’ll destroy him! We must keep our hatred against them [the U.S.] alive and fan it to paroxysms!”This was Che’s prescription for America almost half a century before Osama bin Laden and ISIS appeared on our radar screens. Compared to Che Guevara, Iran’s Ahmadinejad sounds like the Dalai Lama.So for many, the question remains: how did such an incurable doofus, sadist and epic idiot attain such iconic status?The answer is that this psychotic and thoroughly unimposing vagrant named Ernesto Guevara de la Serna y Lynch had the magnificent fortune of linking up with modern history’s top press agent, Fidel Castro, who — from the New York Times’ Herbert Matthews in 1957, through CBS’ Ed Murrow in 1959 to CBS’ Dan Rather, to ABC’s Barbara Walters, to most recently, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg — always had American reporters anxiously scurrying to his every beck and call and eating out of his hand like trained pigeons.Had Ernesto Guevara not linked up with Raul and Fidel Castro in Mexico city that fateful summer of 1955 — had he not linked up with a Cuban exile named Nico Lopez in Guatemala the year before who later introduced him to Raul and Fidel Castro in Mexico City — everything points to Ernesto continuing his life of a traveling hobo, panhandling, mooching off women, staying in flophouses and scribbling unreadable poetry.Che’s image is particularly ubiquitous on college campuses. But in the wrong places. He belongs in the marketing, PR and advertising departments. His lessons and history are fascinating and valuable, but only in light of P.T. Barnum. One born every minute, Mr. Barnum? If only you’d lived to see the Che phenomenon. Actually, ten are born every second.His pathetic whimpering while dropping his fully-loaded weapons as two Bolivian soldiers approached him on Oct. 8 1967 (“Don’t shoot! I’m Che! I’m worth more to you alive than dead!”) proves that this cowardly, murdering swine was unfit to carry his victims’ slop buckets.

by Arnold AhlertThe Center for Military Readiness (CMR) has released a 64-page report analyzing ongoing research by the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) about the effectiveness of integrating women into direct ground combat (DGC) units. The Interim CMR Special Report pokes a giant hole in the Obama administration’s assertions that standards of effectiveness can be maintained irrespective of the biological differences between men and women.

In January 2013, with all the attendant fanfare, Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta lifted a 1994 ban on women serving in smaller DGCs, insisting that “women are contributing in unprecedented ways to the military’s mission of defending the nation.” The move was recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and each branch of service has until January 2016 to seek special exemptions to the change. Panetta argued that women already make up 15 percent of the military and have already faced “the reality of combat.” He further insisted everyone is entitled to see if they can meet the qualifications for being in a DGC.

As it is with so many leftist agendas, the meaning of words can be manipulated to meet them. As the CMR explains, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey “has suggested that standards too high for women should be questioned” and has called for a “critical mass” of women in DGC units, a percentage that apparently ranges from 10-15 percent. To achieve this critical mass, the Obama administration has embraced “gender diversity metrics” that could lead to higher-preforming personnel being replaced by those meeting minimum standards characterized as “lower but equal.”

All of this is code-speak for quotas.

In 2012, Gen. James Amos initiated USMC research aimed at finding a way to integrate women into combat units. While physical strength was not the only issue of concern, it is the one where the disparities between men and women could not be obscured. Data collected in 2013 from 409 male and 379 female volunteers by the USMC Training and Education Command (TECOM) revealed several inconvenient truths during the five “proxy” tests designed to simulate ground combat element (GCE) tasks. In conjunction with data from Physical and Combat Fitness Tests (PFT and CFT), the greatest disparity between men and women was demonstrated in tests that measured upper body strength, which is considered essential for both survival and the success of missions involving direct ground combat.

The numbers are stark. In pull-up tests, men averaged 15.69 pull-ups, compared to a 3.59 pull-up average for women. Clean and press tests that involved lifting progressively heavier weights ranging from 70-115 pounds produced a passing rate of 80 percent among men at the 115 pound level, compared to only 8.7 percent of women. In a 120 mm Tank Loading Simulation drill, less than 1 percent of the men failed, compared to 18.68 percent of women. Less than 1 percent of men failed the 155 mm Artillery Lift and Carry, compared to 28.2 percent of women. And in the Obstacle Wall With Assist Box test that used a 20 inch box to simulate a “helping hand,” less than 1.2 percent of men could not get over the obstacle course, compared with 21.32 percent of women.

Enter “gender norming.” Gender norming is the idea that the military should have different (read: lower) standards for women than men. In practice, this has been going on for a long time. As a 1995 article written by Walter Williams reveals, “Army fitness standards call for 80 push-ups for men and 56 for women. Male soldiers ages 17 to 25 must run two miles in 17 minutes and 55 seconds. Females are given 22 minutes and 14 seconds. Male Marine trainees must climb 20 feet of rope in 30 seconds; women are given 50 seconds.” Nonetheless, proponents of gender norming say any concern that it will lead to lowered overall standards is unwarranted—because female soldiers will have to meet stringent guidelines before they are deployed in DGCs.

Not quite. “If we do decide that a particular standard is so high that a woman couldn’t make it, the burden is then on the service to come and explain to the secretary, ‘Why is it that high? Does it really have to be that high?’” Gen. Dempsey contends.

The CMR further illuminates the machinations taking place, citing a June 2013 report to Congress by the Marines, noting that “gender-neutral” events in the PFT, CFT and obstacle courses “would be gender-normed for score…to account for physiological differences.” The CMR further reveals that researchers see the USMC project as a way to question whether tests such as the PFT and CFT serve as “valid predictors” of success in “combat-related tasks.” All of this is designed to downplay the conclusions reached by the CMR’s evaluation of the study: that “gender norming” is a contradiction of “gender neutral,” and despite the Pentagon’s insistence that those eligible for DGCs will have to meet gender-neutral standards, “data compiled so far indicates that this expectation cannot be met.”

How does the military plan to sidestep the issue? The CMR reveals the insidious concepts being employed in that regard. “Gender Diversity Dividends” could allow women to use “gender scoring tables” to accumulate points or dividends leading to 3rd, 2nd or 1st class status, that may even include extra points for women only. “Lower But Equal Standards” is the idea that the “worst performing decile” (one-tenth) of soldier performance should be used to calculate minimum passing test scores. “Training to Task” is the idea that women could improve their performance in pre-screening and other upper-body strength tests.

As the CMR notes, there is no specific study to support that assertion. A 1997 effort conducted by the Army revealed that specialized training could strengthen women on a temporary basis—but strengthen men even more, while retired expert in military medicine Rear Admiral Hugh Scott explained that androgenic hormones “that are not going to change” account for the differences in muscle mass and endurance training between men and women.

Military women have noticed. A recent survey conducted by the Army revealed that only 7.5 percent of the 30,000 who responded said they would want one of the combat jobs that would be made available. Even more telling, when the Army polled men and women about the physical standards, both groups said they should remain the same. “The men don’t want to lower the standards because they see that as a perceived risk to their team,” David Brinkley, deputy chief of staff for operations at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, told the AP. “The women don’t want to lower the standards because they want the men to know they’re just as able as they are to do the same task.” Regardless, the article further noted that “Brinkley’s office at Fort Eustis is filled with charts, graphs and data the Army is using to methodically bring women into jobs that have been previously open only to men.”

The CMR notes the effort is being aided by organizations such as the RAND Corporation, who have produced studies that are “not independent or objective, or likely to challenge the administration’s group-think on military-social issues.” It is group think that is seemingly determined to advance the agenda that methodology can eliminate biological differences between the overwhelming majority of men and women.

However, the military remains determined to try. The CMR notes the Marines will stand up “Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Forces” (GCEITF) that include a 25 percent rate of participation by women and will engage in simulated combat experiences. The CMR warns that the exercise might include “task-shifting” that could conceal deficiencies that would be unworkable in smaller DGC units.

They further warn that Congress needs to get heavily involved in reviewing the research, to consider the many “unresolved controversies that are barely mentioned in the current research.” They include disparities in injuries sustained by women, unit cohesion, the potential for sexual misconduct, readiness, recruiting, retention and reassignment costs, cultural ambivalence with regard to violence against women, and eligibility for Selective Service obligations tied to DGC units.

In conclusion, the CMR’s bottom line is clear: “None of the USMC research results produced so far support the activists’ theories that women can be physical equals and interchangeable with men in the combat arms.”

Unfortunately one suspects such reality is irrelevant. Speaking with Front Page, CMR President Elaine Donnelly noted that gender integration is driven by the idea of “how to make it happen, instead of whether to make it happen.” “The military should not be forced to achieve an agenda the president’s base demands,” she explained. “If you’re going to have a critical mass of women in direct ground combat units, standards have to be lowered. That’s the only was you can achieve that.” Donnelly also explained how such agendas are sustained. “Nobody holds the policy-makers accountable,” she said. For the sake of current and future soldiers who go into harm’s way to protect the nation, Americans must do exactly that — and demand an end to this dangerous, ideology-driven military policy.

Arnold Ahlert is a former NY Post op-ed columnist currently contributing to JewishWorldReview.com, HumanEvents.com and CanadaFreePress.com. He may be reached at atahlert@comcast.net. Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/the-disaster-of-gender-norming-ground-combat/ Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.